14 DAY TRIAL // Every respectable business man's arsenal includes business cards. They are a trampoline to getting known and to promoting your business. My marketing teacher asked me once which is the most comfortable, easy and successful way to advertise your business. I thought about advertising on TV and radio. He contradicted me and said that it was the business card. It is easy to bring you business to the front with a little imagination printed on the back or face of such a trivial thing.
A business card is the first impression a stranger gets about your business. And a well done one will surely bring you customers. If you are not a very communicative person and you do not meet too many people you can leave it on your seat in a train or bus. Make it attractive and most people will pick it up and take a look.
Business Card Designer Plus is a CAM Development product that will help you in creating the business card of your dreams. The price of the software is 24.95, but you can use it for free for 15 days. The installation file takes 4.07Mb of your hard disk space which is totally acceptable. Be careful with the memory usage as the software tends to eat up pretty much of it (reached about 43MB on my system).
The interface of the application is pleasant enough and it has six main sections the user has to work with: Main Menu Bar, Main Bar, Zoom Bar, the Toolsbar, the Design area and the Property Editor section. The Main Menu Bar allows you the access to the window-specific functions (contains the menus of the software): File, Edit, Alignment, Tool, View and Window.
The Main Bar is actually the abbreviated instance of the Main Menu Bar and it is made up of the most used options of the software (creating a new project, opening a previous project, saving it, previewing ad printing it, the undo/redo buttons, cut/copy/paste, background and personal database buttons).
The Zoom Bar contains the zoom options, as it was only natural and the Toolsbar gives access to the tools you need for the card to become amazing. In the Design area the user will see the business card (front and back) and in the Property Editor you can refine the details of the objects inserted.
A very interesting feature that is introduced by more and more developers of such softwares is the PDB (personal database) which allows the users to create a card in no more than two minutes. As soon as you create your database, the Design Wizard that appears at opening the application will enable you at some point (after choosing the template) to pick up an entry from your database.
The software allows the user to insert pictures into the cards and gives total freedom when it comes to designing. The templates provided by the application may not be to your taste, but you can change them anyway you want. If you cannot find a background to suit you, just insert one of your own, although it seems to me impossible not to find included in the software everything you need.
You have a great palette of options to choose from and in the Property Editor section you will encounter the tools to make your card stand out. Click an item inside the card and make the necessary adjustments in the right side of the application window. Set the position of the object in the General tab, or you can use the keyboard arrows.
For texts, apply fonts and styles and give it the color you want in order to blend in with the rest of the design. Choose the effects that will define your business. Applying gradient for the text is as easy as defining the two colors.
If you want to create CD-R business cards, you will find no problem here as the software provides you with a stack of templates for this, too. Just select in the Design Wizard the type of the business card you want to create.
The Good
Business Card Designer Pro offers the chance to both the more experienced user and the beginners to create unique cards. The beginners benefit from the wizard menu at opening the application which guides you from the beginning to the end of the design.
The Hint Bar at the bottom of the application window will explain every option you are hovering your mouse pointer over.
The Help menu takes you through every step of the application and gives details for every option of the software.
The Bad
The software uses more memory than I expected when it comes to pictures. Also, when it comes to applying effects to pictures, something strange happens with the gamma effect: move the slider back and forth for a couple of times and you will see what I mean.
It would have been great if the PDB allowed you to insert the picture of the contact, and based on the template to insert it directly into the card together with all the other information.
The Truth
Despite all that bad stuff, the software will make amazing business cards in just minutes. The Design Wizard will teach every user (no matter the skill level) some tricks of the software. In fact, all the way to creating a card you will be accompanied by information and tips from the software.
The Personal Database (PDB) will help the user to create many business cards based on the elected template. This feature is useful when you want to make business cards for your employees.
Here are some snapshots of the application in action:
